24

beauty and the beast

question: how come belle and her father acted completely mystified by the fact that there was an enormous castle in the middle of the woods and yet, when gaston and his mob are singing “kill the beast” in a very un-mob-like way, they all know where it is and it’s got this long bridge-like driveway?

there’s a hole in this plot.

a bunch of sickos running around in my apartment

the sickos would be us. well, mostly ava. i just have a sore throat. and i’m exhausted, but i can’t tell if that’s child number 2 exacting some sort of revenge or the sore throat. i’m pretty sure it’s child number 2. he’s been like this all 12 weeks of his sweet life.

ava, as a sick person is like the old ava except with two personalities. sometimes she is tired and cuddly and whiny (i like everything but the whining). that’s when we get blankets and sit back and watch a disney princess movie (where cinderella dons her “glasses” and goes to the ball. she means glass slippers, but it always comes out glasses). then, without even blinking her pretty blue eyes, other ava is here and she is leaping about like hester prynne’s offspring (is her name pearl? i can’t remember). you know, sort of satanic and spritely. she throws things in the air, empties things out, collects and rearranges all of my spices in front of the front door, and drags all holiday decorations out of their little storage area and attempts to give us a little holiday flair. this ava exhausts me.

so yesterday, while being spritely, she found toby’s old dog bed and dragged it out (it’s clean). she fits perfectly in it! so when she is tired, cuddly and whiny, she has taken to flopping in to the blue donut pillow and dragging several blankets on top of her so she can laugh when lucifer (cinderella’s evil step-cat) blows out a candle that the mice wheel out in an attempt to. . .well, i’m not sure, but they’re pretty angry! it’s pretty cute (ava, not the mice). i look at her and i think, well, i want an enormous donut pillow/bed for me, too.

alas, adulthood.

ava resting in her donut pillow of peace

my saturday

saturday i drove down laurel canyon towards hollywood. it is so beautiful! the trees are huge and the path is windy and thin (a change from the 6 lane freeway i exited). the part that thrills me the most is thinking about who has lived in all of the houses. bob dylan owned a house on laurel canyon. and joni mitchell. and crosby, stills and nash (perhaps young at one point, i’m not sure). eric clapton, emmylou harris, mama cass, james taylor, jackson browne. . .there’s all of this music in all of those houses and i drove among them. like i said, thrilling.

the reason i was headed down to w. hollywood is to meet my cousins, paul and erica (siblings) and erica’s boyfriend, justin. paul lives in hollywood and is currently unemployed (he quit just before the new year so he had two weeks of vacation left and come january 1st, five weeks of vacation. he ended up with 7 weeks paid unemployment). when paul first came to la he told me, “i’m going to buy my happiness. people say you can’t, but i can.” he’s launching a website right now (something to do with finding places to hang out and eat in la, but it’s been awhile since he explained the project to me). he is loathe to find a new job. this is all very hilarious when paul says it.

erica is from connecticut, but is going to school in utah (where she met justin, from corona). i love erica. besides my mom, she is the relative that is most like me (sense of humor wise). she’s this young, hot thing with a love life you wouldn’t believe. i love hearing her stories. she brought justin, they arrived late. which meant that paul and i sat around and speculated about him for awhile. paul was not excited. the thought of his sister dating puts him in a bad mood. i would say that he was pretty moody the entire time we had lunch. he made erica and justin sit apart (poor guy sat next to me). i have to admit, i had my reservations also. i mean the kid also goes by “jigga” (i’m so void of hip hop that anything remotely hip hop highlights me like a the glow of a blacklight). anyway, paul left left early (it could possibly be because i started asking them questions about their relationship and he gave me a rather mean look. whatever, i liked him at that point) and the rest of us sat in the sunshine with ice cream.

can i just say that i love justin (no pressure, erica)? the most overwhelming aspect of this guy’s persona is his goodness. he is a sincerely good person, with such a good spirit. you just don’t bump in to that very often. and he has this very creative vibe to him, which i always love in people. it’s good to see the people you love surrounded by good people. and it’s good to meet them every once in awhile, it makes you appreciate humanity a little more.

23

this is the blankee and we will die when it does (which should be soon, since ava likes to EAT it).

i boiled jasper

this morning my fish was cold (don’t ask me how i knew this, i just did. call it fish-owner’s intuition). anyway, i got out my brother’s pet gecko’s spare warming lamp (don’t ask) and shone it on jasper. and you know what? it worked. he was moving around, looking less miserable. but then, i forgot all about it and when i next checked on the fish that encourages joyful hugging in our home, he was swimming belly up.

i boiled him.

i stink.

valentines

ps

we are not moving anymore. and if by “we are not moving anymore” i really mean, “we are moving” then we are moving from one apartment in our complex to another. because they might have one for a smaller rent and an extra bedroom. sorry for the confusion.

we’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

i have a new friend. a girl moved in to the area and goes to church with me and she ACTUALLY WANTS TO GO DO THINGS. maybe this doesn’t make sense to any of you other people elsewhere, but here in my little town, the moms are not all that friendly. they’re kind of clique-ish. and they don’t want to do things. so sara moved in (yay!) and we went to the zoo. we managed to stuff BOTH strollers in to the back of my little nissan, but i don’t know why i bothered, since ava pushed her stroller around almost the whole day.

ava loved it. L-O-V-E-D it. she would point and half scream-half ooh and talk to me about the animals–especially the snow leopard, the lions and the duck. i loved the elephants and the giraffes and (this is the most exciting part of the day!) i got to FEED A GIRAFFE! those of you who knew me as a little child (or are married to me)  you know i have this thing for wild animals.  i watch animal planet  (when we have the  TV)  like a nut and am planning on one day having a baby elephant (african) for a pet. i’ve entertained the thought of giraffes. i figure i would probably feed them from my second-story window, but i’ve no plans in cement yet (not like i do for my baby elephant). she will be named joy.

i was so excited to be close to a giraffe, to put the biscuit on his tongue (which was amazing) and have him curl his purple tongue around it and pull it in. ava and the girl who worked at the zoo  were not amused.
“you may not pet the giraffe.” the girl said with a straight face as she refused to take my picture.

ava just behaved as though i were holding her out to the giraffe and his big, purple tongue and not the biscuit. we didn’t stay long after.

i love the zoo. and i’m so glad my daughter finally does, too.

yesterday morning

in the sink